#its good bc... its literally putting their heads together. they value their shared knowledge. physical affirmation of synthesis

[code31-onthedancefloor]

hm. stebuli head bonks as displays of casual affection...

[merrysithmas]

you may have talked about this before but do you believe boris already knew he was queer and first approached theo bc he liked him or that he started crushing after they developed a close friendship and theo was what made him question his sexuality? i think theres reasons to believe either side- boris being bold enough to cuddle him in bed seems like he was making a move but him suddenly “loving” kotku seems like an impulsive move out of fear bc he realized he might like a boy. oof idk

I think Boris knew he was attracted to boys — which is evident by his playful, charming, almost teenaged-desperate pursuit of Theo. I think he probably inherently knew this about himself for a long time. I think Boris has always been physically attracted to boys since he’s entered puberty and since he’s still a young teen it is kind of a fun, funny, interesting, enlivening thing for him.

He’s never had a stable life and despite being all over the world he’s led an extremely sheltered existence in a certain way with only one terrible person as his constant (Vladimir). Boris lets it slip to Theo that everywhere the miners go they are hated — this includes Boris. Boris is hated by the public everywhere they go. So long as he is part of their unit, he is hated. That is mortifying to intelligent good-natured Boris. That is why he learns to slip out and around, to be so personable and friendly. His world travels have not been so glorious but probably rather extremely lonely and isolating (as with Judy in Canada), hurtful, and damaging. That is why Bami and Judy (and eventually, Theo) stand out to him so much — people who were kind to him in a childhood of isolated misery and directionlessness. Boris has no moral hang ups about his same-sex attraction - why should he? This directionlessness in his key developmental years is also a good thing: He never grew up around any sort of organized belief systems or stayed bound within an orthodox culture for too long for it to indoctrinate him as its own.

I think people really underestimate how incredibly remote and friendless Boris’ life must have been. Boris is a cheerful boy who Theo says is often plagued by black moods and sullen attitudes. He is an abused and secluded child dragged from location to location with literally no love or stability and constantly brutally beaten to the point where it does not even phase him. Boris actually equates love with that abuse — and nonchalantly claims his father loves him. That is painful to read, that amount of damage.

Living with a bunch of derelict miners whose leader was HIS FATHER (so surely then mostly assholes) and who are “hated everywhere they go” Boris has probably seen any NUMBER of things a conservative-minded person would (likely often erroneously) see as “morally unacceptable” — it’s like Boris is traveling the world with a crew of pirates. He’s probably seen drinking, all kinds of drugs commonly used in front of his face. He has esoteric knowledge about drug use that a child of his age should not — so he was taught by the miners: roll like this, dont include the stems, never mix this, tuck snuff like this, you can get this kind of drug here here and here, it isn’t safe if it doesn’t look like this. His young child’s mind eager to learn sucked up this black information from men who probably didn’t have a second thought to a child or what his developmental needs were. He’s probably first hand witnessed sex workers copulating with his father’s crew (how else would be have learned about the opportunity to lose his virginity in an Alaskan parking lot to a sex worker?), definitely thievery, and said he saw his father murder a man in the mine once and cover it up. Boris’ mind is full of a lifetime of this morally shadowed behavior being presented as normal, or at least secret but common.

I think he understands his attraction to boys in this same way. I think he feels it isn’t “appropriate” to share with Outsiders but it is something that Happens, something that is no one’s business but his own, and something that brings him pleasure and happiness and therefore something he will look for. However he knows it isn’t common or visible or “appropriate” to be showy about it in front of others — especially not people who could judge him (kids at school), kick him out (society), or hurt him (his father). Boris treats his attraction to Theo like his other vices and “bad” habits - barrels head first — but secret: deep dive into happy drug use (but don’t show his dad), steals everything he ever needs (but don’t let them see, put it in my coat), lies when it suits him (lies to Xandra and Larry and his father and Theo too), happily sleeps with Theo and has sex with him (but this is between you-and-me).

He knows other people might have a problem with his actions — but he does not. So that’s his hangup there. He is aware of and ever-vigilant of his surroundings. School: a safe place isolated from his father. He is free and happy to do what he wants at school — including crush on and go after Theo who he clearly likes. He thinks Theo is cute, flirts with him, tries to get him to notice him, talks to him after class, sits next to him on the bus, begs him to come over his house, tries to impress him with far-flung stories, gives him alcohol because it’s what he’s seen his father’s men do in pursuit of romantic partners or as a bonding ritual with one another.

Theo’s house is also a safe place. So safe in fact that Boris starts to leave behind some of the maladjusted development of his childhood and become more of a happy, clear-minded person. Boris and Theo suffer from arrested development and one of themes of the book is childhood lost. They are forced to mimic adults either knowingly or unknowingly, and act in ways that children should not have to in order to survive this Adult World alone. With one another they begin to heal from their traumas, their affection for one another the catalyst. Theo cooks for him, talks to a babbling eager-to-talk Boris (imagine how few people have listened to or understood the ideas of a smart boy like Boris, often surrounded by oafish alcoholics, his violent father where he is expected to keep quiet, or cultures where he does not speak the language), Theo sleeps next to him willingly, he likes Boris, a boy from New York (the top of the world!) he think Boris is funny and smart and worldly, shares his dog with him, hangs on his words, becomes his companion, cares for him if he drinks too much, tried to tend his wounds, welcomes him gratefully into his broken family, watches his favorite movies with him, celebrates holidays with him, inherently values him — and so starts to mend Boris’ broken heart.

A lot of things and viewpoints Boris has are clearly repetitions of things he has heard his father or the miners say — “Christmas is for children” (of course they’d say that to a tiny Boris longing for the magic of Christmas as a child stuck in a mining camp watching the peripheral joy of children around him and coming back to bleak hunger and a dark home), or “god yes I loved having sex with her” (about his hooker in the parking lot — Boris then says he knew she didn’t enjoy it and never shows enjoyment but rather avoidance towards women and girls in any genuine way afterwards, yet covets Theo’s physical company).

Theo on the other hand, who for a short while and then so painfully ripped from him, grew up with love. His natural disposition in Vegas comes from a place of being so recently loved and cherished by his mother and he here, in this lonely place, turns the focus of this disposition onto the one person who is kind and protective towards him: Boris — his one light in a life that has turned very dark. This is like an alien world to Boris. Lonesome and neglected Boris is touched and startled and soon changed by this kindness. So much so that Theo, unknowingly, alters the rest of Boris’ life (Boris feels Theo saved his life).

So that is why I believe the Kotku Gay Panic came about. After their climactic Vegas pool scene where their abuse and trauma is opened to one another (their wounds from their fathers, from fire, literally pouring into the purifying chlorine of the watery womb - mother - pool as they try to drown one another, angry at their attraction to one another, but then cling to and save one another instead) Boris begins to not just have fun and have sex and have freedom with Theo (all okay things by Boris’ standards as long as it is secret) — after that scene and they sleep together and Boris satisfies that teenaged human sexual need... they continue to hookup and be at bliss for a very long, happy time where they both begin to psychologically heal— Boris doesn’t just have sex and fun with Theo, he realizes he starts to love Theo.

Love - an extremely foreign concept to Boris who literally freaks the fuck out because he has no baseline for it. It isn’t the type of “love” that his father gives him (violent, untrustworthy), it isn’t the type of “love” the men who grew up around valued (cheap parking lot sex), it isn’t the kind of “love” his idol Larry has with Xandra (Larry lies to Xandra all the time), it isn’t the kind of “love” Boris has seen in his favorite movies (men and women over and over). No, this love with Theo is very very scary to him. Very perhaps dangerous. He doesn’t know.

I think Boris accepts his physical attraction to men as nbd. I think he probably feels most people feel such attractions or some other harmless private desires that certain people may see as an aberrant from “normal” for whatever reason (either typical kinks and silly hush hush sex shop porno stuff - or other far more despicable things he’s witnessed his father’s men do) and so thinks nothing of his own innocent, consensual goodtime-centered desires. Boris, who likely grew up with little exposure to healthy LGBTQ representation and has a very isolated POV in some ways, likely to some degree at the Vegas point in his life (however casually self-accepting he is) equates same-sex attraction with hush hush taboo sex activities — nothing to be ashamed of, but you’re not going to tell your dad.

As long as it is a personal thing, for him only, Boris embraces it. But it is the emotionality, the healing, the care, the love that freaks Boris out and makes him make a run for it to Kotku — only to recede to what he knows and repeat the exact kind of fake “love” he was taught by his father: unbelievable exclamations of devotion (Boris’ dad sobbing and telling him he loves him + “I love her I love her! She’s beautiful and perfect!”) coupled with the black truth (Boris’ dad beating the shit out of him + Boris beating Kotku).

Boris knows he likes boys but when he starts to love one — that’s when he runs away. Because that means something totally different: societally and personally.